Karen Shea
Engineering Manager at Ableton
Berlin, Germany
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolKaren Shea is an engineering manager based in Berlin with 11 years of experience bridging design and distributed systems, currently leading the Push software team at Ableton. A former graphic designer turned developer, she brings a rare combination of typographic sensibility and rigorous engineering—shipping infrastructure, routing, and scaling work across Mapbox, Daimler's autonomous services, and Ableton. Her open-source contributions include front-end API maintenance for Mapbox.js and test-driven improvements to OSRM’s C++ routing backend, reflecting deep domain expertise in mapping and navigation. Known for building on-call processes, migrations, and reliable test suites, she excels at turning complex routing requirements into maintainable production systems. Colleagues rely on her to balance product polish with robust backend engineering and to mentor teams through operational scaling challenges.
11 years of coding experience
11 years of employment as a software developer
Johns Hopkins UniversityBachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Graphic Design, Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Graphic Design at Maryland Institute College of ArtBachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Design and Visual Communications, General, Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Design and Visual Communications, General at Parsons Paris
English, Chinese, French, German
Github Skills (13)
unit-testing10
url-routing10
maps10
map-box10
javascript10
c-language10
cprogramming-language10
leaflet10
mapbox-gl10
testing10
boost9
cpp9
doc9
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
Project-OSRM/osrm-backend
Jan 2016 - Jan 2021
Open Source Routing Machine - C++ backend
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Test Automation Engineer
Back-end Developer & Test Automation EngineerContributions:2 releases, 181 commits, 81 PRs in 5 years 1 month
Contributions summary:Karen contributed to the `osrm-backend` repository, a C++ backend for the Open Source Routing Machine. Their commits primarily focused on adding and improving test cases for the project. These tests covered various functionalities, including target tests and route calculations, ensuring the project's integrity. Furthermore, the user's work involved modifications to the request parser and debugging tools within the backend.
astarcppdijkstrac-plus-plusmap-matching
mapbox/mapbox.js
Nov 2015 - Nov 2015
Mapbox JavaScript API, a Leaflet Plugin
Role in this project:Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:10 commits, 2 PRs, 12 pushes in 1 day
Contributions summary:Karen primarily worked on the front-end aspects of the Mapbox.js library, a Leaflet Plugin. Their contributions focused on modifying the `format_url.js` file to dedupe parts of the URL and adjusting tests in `test/spec/format_url.js` and `test/index.html`, indicating they were adding and modifying tests. The user also worked on updating the docs for v2.2.3. This suggests a focus on API maintenance and ensuring correct behavior within the mapping library.
leafletapimapboxleaflet-plugindocs-site
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